The Daily Schedule Of A Rheumatologist

A rheumatologist can have patients admitted to a hospital ward and will consult with them on a daily basis until they are well enough to be discharged home or to a rehabilitation hospital for further management. These specialists will also consult with patients of other physicians and surgeons who have requested an opinion from them.

Rheumatologists are expected to provide on call services after hours and on weekends so that primary healthcare workers, casualty doctors and other specialists can get hold of them to discuss a patient's condition. Emergency cases that a rheumatologist would need to see urgently include acute lower backache due to a rheumatic cause, severe acute arthritis, severe acute gout, acute exacerbation in a patient with chronic arthritis, lupus flare-up, rheumatoid flare-up, scleroderma renal crisis, systemic necrotizing vasculitis, erythema nodosum and catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome.

Monday

A rheumatologist will first deal with the non-clinical issues of the practice before consulting with patients. These administrative tasks include confirming and attending meeting for the week with hospital staff and management as well as medical representatives. Clinical aspects such as the admission lists for patients also need to be confirmed for the week.

Once these issues have been dealt with, the rheumatologist can then begin consulting with patients. Most of the time these patients will be managed conservatively with medication or sent for specialized investigations which are then followed up and discussed with the patient.

Patients can also be admitted for further investigations that need to be done in the hospital and they are managed further depending on the findings of these tests. These patients will include those who have severe pain and inflammation that can only be adequately controlled with intravenous medications.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Rheumatologists will continue to consult with and manage patients accordingly on these days. The specialist will also use this day to fill in motivation letters to the medical insurance companies, fill in chronic prescriptions for patients or do further research for their own academic purposes.

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Thursday 

The rheumatologist will continue to see and manage patients during the morning of this day. The afternoon will be used for training undergraduate medical students and post-graduate clinical assistants if the specialist is involved with the academic programme of the local medical school.

It is very likely that a rheumatologist will spend the majority of their week consulting with patients since there is quite a shortage of these specialists in general. Also, they have a lot of patients referred to them by not only primary healthcare workers, such as nurse and general practitioners, but from other specialists too.

Friday

The rheumatologist will consult and manage patients in the morning and deal with any other unfinished administrative issues in the afternoon. The work week can then end once all these aspects have been dealt with.